


sure as the stars shine above

by pistolgrip



Category: Granblue Fantasy (Video Game)
Genre: Christmas, Fluff, M/M, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:47:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28394109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pistolgrip/pseuds/pistolgrip
Summary: After last year’s attempt to cheer Six up on Christmas by dressing up as Santa (which had failed miserably), Siete figured the next step would be to actually find Santa himself.
Relationships: Siete | Seofon/Six | Seox (Granblue Fantasy)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 18





	sure as the stars shine above

**Author's Note:**

> title from "Please Come Home For Christmas" - The Eagles (yes again because this song gets me every time!!! every damn year!!!!!)

As nice as it would have been to spend actual Christmas day with the Eternals, Siete knew better than to ask that much of them when so many of them had loved ones and families they would spend the day with. For him, it was enough that they in recent years had finally pulled together full attendance for the pre-Christmas feast Siete always organized.

Christmas day itself was always a quiet affair, usually only him, Six, and Sarasa left in the base, with others coming and going through the day without staying. This year, not even Siete would be at the base, but he wouldn’t be leaving the others behind without Christmas cheer.

After last year’s attempt to cheer Six up on Christmas by dressing up as Santa (which had failed miserably), Siete figured the next step would be to actually find Santa himself, whom he knew was real after hearing enough stories of those from the Grandcypher. He spent almost the entire year tracking him down, and after engaging in one of the most difficult and honorable one-on-one battles with the man (he could seriously have been an Eternal if he hadn’t found Funf), they’d come to an agreement. Siete would help Santa deliver presents all night in exchange for two things: a similar duel with Funf, who was now old enough to understand the consequences of her whims, and a personal visit to one person. (It would have been three requests if Stardust Town weren’t already a regular stop for Santa every year, anyway.)

That was how Siete found himself regularly fighting off rabid, invisible creatures in the sky while Santa remarked it was “nice” that he didn’t have to worry so much about “those pesky little guys” this year.

“Now I get why you only do this once a year,” Siete says, more exhausted than he has been in a very long time. 

Santa went and engaged Funf in the brightest duel in all the land near midnight. It’s close to sunrise hours later by the time Siete sees the familiar empty skies and the clouds parting for the tiny island with Terra. Siete’s absolutely _not_ nodding off—he is a professional, he knows that Santa is the most important person in the skies and must be protected at all costs—but it’s been a nonstop night, and he must have drifted off at some point anyway, because Santa has to shake him awake.

He jolts up out of surprise, and Santa whispers, “Don’t worry about falling asleep. The sleigh does that to even the best of us.” 

The base comes into view, and he can see a few lamps on in the common room, the fireplace still blazing; he’d told Six and Sarasa he would be busy this Christmas until the morning, but he didn’t expect them to be awake for any reason.

Santa lands the sleigh quietly in the front yard, the sound of sleigh bells dampened by the snow piled up on the ground. He waves Siete over and points at the door, putting a finger up to his lips, and there’s no other sound in the winter air but their boots crunching the snow underneath. 

Siete opens the door for them, but he stays by the entrance as Santa wipes his boots and walks in, because he can see Six asleep on the couch by the fireplace, cookies and milk out—as if he were embarrassed to have done this all the years Siete had been also at the base for Christmas. Santa waits for him to follow, and Siete shakes his head, stays out of view. It seems like a curious decision, one Santa doesn’t necessarily understand, but one he goes along with nonetheless. 

He rings his sleigh bells lightly and sits on the couch across from Six, and Siete smiles to himself as he hears Six groan awake, and then—

“Siete?” he murmurs, voice heavy with sleep, tinged with slight annoyance but warm all the same. “Must I spend another year threatening to remove those bells from you?”

Something curious happens in Siete’s chest, rising to his face and spreading through his body, his fingers tingling. The logical part of him tries to remember that Six is more used to Siete’s appearance at the base and would expect him rather than Santa, but still a part of Siete warms at hearing Six’s voice and his expectations for Siete before him, perhaps not as annoyed with him when coming from a comfortable sleep.

Six must not have opened his eyes, because Santa sounds like he leans forward on the couch, shaking him awake. Six groans again, this time more cranky. “Sie—” he starts, before letting out the smallest of gasps, and Santa laughs heartily.

Siete shouldn’t be listening to Six talking about how he wished Santa had visited when he was younger, nor how Santa’s voice is is full of regret and acknowledgment of mistakes, how the Karm hamlet had missed his notice. So he zones out, splitting his effort between not hearing too much and not falling asleep.

“For all those years,” Santa finally asks breaking through his sleepy haze, “what can I give to you, my child?”

For a long time, Six is silent. Then, he says, “For the Eternals to get home safe after the holidays.”

Siete nearly gives himself away out of shock. For the Eternals. For their little makeshift home, one of maybe many for some of them. A wish Six can admit to a man he trusts beyond a doubt.

“Even Siete?” Santa lets out a chuckle. “You seemed particularly annoyed thinking I was him when you first woke.”

Six lets out another groan that seems embarrassed. “Of course I was, but…” He thinks for a moment that Six is silent, but he then hears the quiet, drawn-out sigh pinched out between his lips. “He’s still an Eternal. A—a friend.” His next words are muffled, as if he were hiding his mouth with his hand. “Regardless of my day-to-day annoyances, he has still shown me kindness beyond expectation. This is the first Christmas in a while he hasn’t spent at the base. I don’t know if you know if he’s safe or not, but…”

“I’m positive,” Santa says, ever the reassuring figure. “I’m sure he’s out there thinking of you as well.”

“I’m not—” Six barks out a sigh, not irritated, but almost embarrassed. “Forget I said anything.”

“I can see to it that he and the rest get home safe during this season,” Santa says. He stands up, and Siete realizes with a jolt that Six might follow to send him off, but Santa seems to have already thought of that, because he says, “You can sit down and drift off again. Looks like others have left presents under the tree you’ve got here! You should be well-rested for opening these in the morning.”

The couch creaks under Six’s weight, and then Santa comes back out to the foyer, opening the door and heading off into the lightening sky, Siete in tow. Siete hides under the empty sacks on the sleigh in case Six decides to look out—but as Santa takes off and he gets a glance into the living room, he can see Six already fast asleep, blanket falling off his shoulders and mask in his lap.

* * *

“I’ll drop you off here,” Santa says, touching down at the edge of an island, a port not too far away.

“Thank you,” Siete says, lightheaded from the hard work, the sleepiness, and whatever it was that Six had said that made it so he had been accompanied by a curious warmth throughout the last leg of the journey.

“I should be thanking you! That was the most stress-free Christmas I’ve had in a while.” Santa’s smile is content, truly the embodiment of Father Christmas. “If you’d like to help me again next Christmas it would be fantastic, although I can understand if you’d like instead to spend it with loved ones.”

Siete opens his mouth and then closes it.

He never got a visit from Santa as a child, nor had he expected one with the kind of youth he’d had. He’d gone so far to consider that Santa was fake—only to meet with him like this in adulthood, years and years after his tumultuous youth. That lack of qualification of being good was no clerical error for him unlike what it must have been for Six, and it follows that he hadn’t had any loved ones to spend holidays with until he’d grown up and out of that era of his life.

“I think so,” he finally mutters in the end, letting a small smile twitch at the corner of his mouth. “Seeing as I finally have loved ones to take care of for the holidays.”

The sun is seated comfortably in the morning sky by the time Siete gets back to the base, falling half asleep and woken up almost instantly by the smell of breakfast that isn’t burning. He wipes his feet on the mat and tilts his head to see Sarasa and Uno setting plates in the dining room.

“Look who made it!” Sarasa yells, grinning wide. 

Siete laughs to hide his yawn. “Ah, Uno’s here, I was wondering why it didn’t smell like burning for breakfast.”

“I’ll kill ya!” Her grin only grows with her threat.

Before he goes up to his quarters to change into something more comfortable, he checks in on the kitchen to find Six debating over breakfast plating. He nudges an egg with his fork one centimeter to the left, and Siete peeks over his shoulder at the same time Six turns, mouth half-open with another retort ready. Their noses brush, a spot of warmth where Siete’s is almost frostbitten.

With a laugh, Siete steals a slice of ham off one of the plates, getting a huff in response. “You can’t sneak up on me,” Six mutters, although he still seems flustered enough that his cheeks are slightly flushed.

“I wasn’t trying, promise.” He stretches his arms above his head as Six resumes plating, and voice sleepy, he says, “I spend all night working hard and I don’t even get a warm welcome back?”

“The others have greeted you sufficiently.”

“What if all I wanted after my long and hard Christmas night was a greeting from you?” he whines, pouting.

Six pauses, glancing at where Uno and Sarasa are still setting the table, and then he turns to face him. His expression is gentle, peaceful in a way Siete’s never quite seen before—only while Six has fallen asleep out of exhaustion in places outside his room, during missions together when they’d needed to take shifts for guarding each other’s backs. 

He tilts his head up at him ever so slightly, and his eyes are curved in a smile, the corner of his lips not betraying anything. “Then welcome back,” he murmurs. “Try not to be gone so long for Christmas in the future.”

Siete’s jaw drops as he walks away with full plates, meticulously arranged with food. “You missed me, Six?”

“I said nothing of the sort.” His ears flick. “I was simply referring to the quality of the food.”

“You don’t have to lie,” Siete says, his voice dropping from its joking tone as he backs out of the kitchen. “Because I missed you too.”

He turns and leaves to go upstairs before he can see Six react, whistling to himself. As he passes the common room, he sees the glass of milk and plate of cookies empty, a forgotten blanket and half of Six’s mask still sitting on the couch.


End file.
